fashionable prejudices. I have been led also incidentally to advert to the influence exerted over the fortunes of our race by those who are too often overlooked in our social arrangements and in our civil rights.

Leaving to others more qualified by practical experience to point out in detail the errors prevalent in our existing mode of education, I shall, at our next meeting, consider the other of the two enumerated means of improvement, viz. free enquiry. And as this is for us of the present generation the only means, so shall I endeavour to show how much it is our interest and how imperiously it is our duty, to improve it to the uttermost.

It is with delight, that I have distinguished, at each successive meeting, the increasing ranks of my own sex. Were the vital principle of human equality universally acknowledged, it would be to my fellow-beings without regard to nation, class, sect, or sex, that I should delight to address myself. But until equality prevail, its towards the oppressed and depressed that I every where especially and anxiously incline. For by whom is instruction most needed? Even by those who possess the least of it; who, not unfrequently, possess so little, that they suspect not their own deficiency.

Nor is the ignorance of our sex matter of surprise, when efforts, as violent as unrelaxed, are every where made for its continuance.

It is not as of yore; Eve puts not forth her hand to gather the fair fruit of knowledge. The wily serpent now hath better learned his lesson; and, to secure his reign in the garden, beguileth her not to eat. Promises, entreaties, threats, tales of wonder, and alas! tales of horror are all poured in her tender ears. Above, her agitated fancy hears the voice of a God in thunders: below she sees the yawning pit; and before, behind, around, a thousand phantoms conjured from the prolific brain of insatiate priestcraft, confound, alarm, and overwhelm her

reason!

Oh! were that worst evil withdrawn which now weighs upon our race, how rapid were its progress in our knowledge! Oh! were men-and, yet more, women-absolved from fear, how easily and speedily and gloriously would they hold on their course in improvement! The difficulty is not to convince, it is to win attention. Could Truth only be heard, the conversion of the ignorant were easy. And well do the hired supporters of error understand this fact. Well do they know, that if the daughters of the present and mothers of the future generation were to drink of the living waters of knowledge, their reign would be ended"their occupation gone." So well do they know it, that far from obeying to the letter the command of their spiritual leader,

"be ye fishers of men," we find them every where fishers of women. Their own sex, old and young, they see with indifference, swim by their nets; but closely and warily are their meshes laid, to entangle the female of every age.

Fathers and husbands! do ye not also understand this? Do ye not see how, in the mental bondage of your wives and fair companions, ye yourselves are bound? Will ye fondly sport in your imagined liberty, and say, " it matters not if our women be slaves." Will ye pleasure yourselves in the varied paths of knowledge and imagine that women, hood-winked and unawakened, will make the better servants and the easier playthings? They are greatly in error who so strike the account, as many a bankrupt merchant and sinking mechanic, not to say drowning capitalist, could bear witness. But, setting aside dollars and cents, which men in their present uncomfortable state of existence are but too prone exclusively to regard, how many nobler interests of the mind and heart cry "treason!" to this false calculation?

To-morrow evening we shall consider those interests, which will naturally present themselves during our investigations on the subject of free enquiry. In what just knowledge consists we have cursorily examined; to put ourselves in the way of attaining that knowledge, be our next object.

END OF LECTURE I.

Printed and Published by RICHARD CARLILE, 62, Fleet-street, where all Communications, post paid, or free of expence, are requested to be left.

No. 9. VOL. 4.] LONDON, Friday, August 28, 1829. [PRICE 6d.

Liverpool, August 23, 1829. HAVING partaken with our worthy host, of the North Star, Byrom-street, of his beef and vegetables, pudding and pie, ale and wine, I sit to commence this fourteenth bulletin in a very spiritual mood. If all were well elsewhere, I should certainly feel that all is well here. Profiting by experience, we resolved not to hurry on any public proceeding in this town; but to wait for the excitement that necessarily attends our presence and challenge as Infidel Missionaries. We have found this arrangement to answer our expectation; and we are about to enter upon a very interesting and important course of discussion with the Reverend David Thom of this town. The walls of the town are thus placarded:

"IMPORTANT DISCUSSION BETWEEN THE REV. DAVID THOM, AND THE INFIDEL MISSIONARIES.

"The discussion is to commence on Wednesday evening, August 26, 1829, at the Ball-room of the King's Arms hotel, Castlestreet. Doors to be opened at six. Discussion to begin precisely at seven, and to be opened with an oration by the Rev. Robert Taylor.-Admission by tickets only, which may be obtained from the Reverend disputants and their friends.-N. B. Any clergyman or competently-educated gentleman, by sending in his name, and placing himself on the rostrum with the disputants, will be allowed to take a part in the discussion."

The Rev. Mr. Thom is a gentleman who was lately connected with the Scotch Kirk, in Rodney-street, in this town. He is a man of great talent and restless enquiry, and unites more of avowed philosophical principles with his priesthood, than has

Printed and Published by R. CARLILE, 62, Fleet Street. No. 9.-Vol. 4.

been found in any other man. He is Christian entirely on what he calls the internal evidence or divine character of the Old and New Testament. He values no other kind of evidence, nothing that is historical or merely human; for he very justly observes, that all these are nothing, unless the books have an internal superiority over all other books. He finds such a delineation of character, of example and instruction, in these books as make up, in his imagination, the beau ideal of human perfection. Beyond this point, he values nothing that is called Christian doctrine. The immortality of the soul, future state, rewards and punishments, heaven, hell, and devil, are declared by this gentleman to be both unscriptural and unchristian. I find no difference in the sentiments of this gentleman and myself, except that he makes the books of the Old and New Testament to be of super-human origin. The nature of our discussion will therefore run thus:-Mr. Taylor will open in a statement of the historical defects of the Christian religion; Mr. Thom will assert the sufficiency, and I the insufficiency of the internal evidence; and the discussion will turn entirely upon the sufficiency or insufficiency of the internal evidence of the super-human origination of the books of the Old and New Testament. Notwithstanding the known and admitted talent of my opponent, I feel this to be the easiest task of the kind that I have yet undertaken. In addition to the names of the preachers lately printed, we sent our circular challenges to the following:

Nathaniel Higgins.
George Highfile d.
Thomas Hill.
George Holt.
Daniel Jones.

David Jones.
John Kirk.

William Knowles.

James Parry.

T. W. Peill, B. A.

S. J. Phillips.

John Porter.
Mr. Prest.

William Pulford, D. D.

Thomas Rowland.

John Scott.

William Shepherd.

David Thom.
John Thomson.
William Tyrer.
John Williams.
Calvin Winstanley.

The Rev. Richard Latewood Townsood, sent back his circular through the post; another crabbed old preacher dropt into the post two anonymous and insolent notes, as his answer to our challenge; and one returned the circular, after taking the precaution to cut out his own name. The Rev. Mr. Thom came to us like a gentleman, and as a bold and honest man should come, expressing a hope that we had talent enough to unchristianize him, and declaring his desire to submit his Christianity to the fire of the most free and talented discussion. It is quite a pleasing novelty to meet such a gentleman as this Christian preacher; for he gives irresistible proofs of his sincerity. Educated in all the nonsense of the Scottish Kirk, he has honourably attained his expulsion, by disclaiming its doctrines; and this has been done at a great pecuniary sacrifice.

We find here, a Jew converting society about to hold its annual meeting, on the 25th instant, and are trying to put our feet into it for discussion.

To Mrs. John Gladstone, and Mrs. Admiral Murray, patronesses of the Ladies' Branch Auxiliary Society for promoting Christianity among the Jews, and to Mrs. Molineux, as treasurer, a copy of the following letter has been sent:

Madam-Presuming only on the accessibility guaranteed by the announcement of your name as patroness of a public institution, I beg leave most respectfully and earnestly to entreat the high honour of your consideration of the merits of a cause, in which the claims of the cause of your adoption, are most essentially involved; which rises as that falls, or must fall as that rises.

"If Christianity ought to be promoted, the cause opposed to Christianity, ought at least to have its merits understood and its pretensions considered, as supplying by contrast the only strongest evidence of that propriety.

"You cannot be uninformed of the fact, that while few or none, who had once ranged in the adverse ranks, have ever gone over to Christianity, thousands are every day renouncing the faith they once professed, and are either privately confessed, or publicly avowed Infidels.

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Among these latter are the Infidel Missionaries, who are now travelling through the country, with convictions as strong, with a zeal as ardent, and with a purpose as determined, to resist the promotion of Christianity, to wean all minds from it, and to set all hearts against it, as was ever yet engaged in its defence or devoted to its service.

"The Infidel Missionaries were once Christians; and he who now addresses you, stands in the order of the apostolical succession, as a priest of the Church of England.

"It is respectfully presumed, that the superior evidence and extended information which induced in their minds a change of conviction, which they have followed through great personal